Firefighters from all over the world line up to compete in the Scott Firefighter Stair Climb challenge hosted at the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle Feb. 28, During the challenge, firefighters had to climb 788 vertical feet to the top of the Columbia Center making up 69 floors of stairs in more than 70 pounds of full firefighting gear to complete the competition. (Courtesy photo)
Story by Airman Collin Schmidt
MALMSTROM AIR FORE BASE, Mont. - One of Malmstrom’s very own had the opportunity to compete in the Scott Firefighter Stair Climb challenge, hosted at the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle Feb. 28. The annual event is hosted as a way to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s mission - to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.
Scott Johns, 341st Civil Engineer Squadron fire and emergency services member, took on the challenge of competing against 1,935 firefighters from over 330 departments from around the world, climbing 69 floors of stairs in full firefighting gear.
To put the challenge into perspective, the Columbia Center where the challenge was held takes 1,356 steps to climb the 788 feet of vertical elevation to the top. This was all done with 70 pounds of firefighting gear strapped to Johns’ body while he performed the climb in a virtual sauna due to the hundreds of previous attempts from other firefighters in the narrow stairwell.
“I placed 627th out of 1,935 firefighters with a time of 20 minutes and 13 seconds,” said Johns. “I was the second to the last battalion to climb that day. The competition kicked off at 8 a.m. with the Seattle Pipes and Drums Team and the fastest firefighter from the previous year accompanying the honorary children, whom are fighting blood cancer, up the escalator to start the event.
“It was pretty touching,” he continued. “By the time it was my turn to go it was 3:30 p.m. There had already been 1,900 firefighters make the brutal climb through the stairwell. When I scanned my bar code (signaling his official start) and entered the stairwell I could immediately feel the wave of heat created by the thousand plus firefighters who climbed before me.”
Johns started off with a great pace, he said. As he recalls, the stairwell looked like a warzone. There were gloves, helmets and all kinds of fire equipment strewn everywhere from firefighters who were exhausted and just wanted the equipment off of them.
For anyone who shed equipment, their completion time was automatically disqualified from the record books. Regardless, hundreds of firefighters took off articles of clothing and heavy pieces of gear in order to complete the climb and not hinder others.
“I passed about 15 or so firefighters that were in front of me and came to a traffic jam on the 27th floor,” said Johns. “There was one person on his hands and knees who was so exhausted he was unable to move. Every few floors I was able to pass a firefighter.”
On the 40th floor was a bottle changing station for firemen to swap out their air bottles before making the final push to the top.
Johns saw this as his opportunity to push through on one bottle and make up some time.
“By the 50th floor I was exhausted,” said Johns. “I slowed to a much slower pace and every floor got tougher. Once I reached the 69th floor I was totally exhausted and so happy to be done.
“The crew at the top helped me out of my gear and to a chair where they gave me water and it felt amazing,” he continued. “There was a firefighter next to me that said he does marathons and he had never experienced anything like this in his life. I agreed with him, it was brutal.”
Johns raised $1,200 for his part in the competition to help battle cancer. In total, the event raised $2.2 million for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Next year, Johns plans to attend the event again and beat his current time.
“This is for a great cause and is a very fun competition to do,” said Johns. “I will be there next year ready to take it on again.”
